Drill rapper pays tribute to court ban

A drill rapper who was banned from using words like ‘whipping’ and ‘trapping’ because they glorify drug dealing has released a new musical track about the court order.

Ervine Kimpalu, 21, made thousands of pounds dealing crack and heroin from the home of a vulnerable man while on bail in 2018.

He was jailed after police raided the property he sold drugs from and opened his safe by entering a pin based on Kimpalu’s birthday.

Performing as Rico Racks, he bragged about dealing in cocaine and crack in his YouTube music video ‘Sinning and Winning’, released just days after his arrest in May 2019.

Five months later Judge Jane Sullivan imposed a Criminal Behaviour Order forbidding Kimpalu from making music that refers to drug dealing or from covering his face in public with a balaclava.

She said: ‘I think this will prevent you from engaging in this behaviour, part of your drug dealing lifestyle was your promotion drug dealing, these type of terms will not interfere in your being able to express yourself in music.’

The court order forbid him from rapping the words ‘bandoe’ (a house drug dealing house), ‘trapping’ (supplying), ‘connect’ (a wholesale drugs contact) and ‘whipping’, slang for driving or preparing crack cocaine.

But In his new track entitled ‘Criminal Behaviour Order’, released on 1 June this year, the chorus repeats that Kimpalu keeps forgetting he ‘can’t possess two phones’ and is ‘breaking the rules.

The rap refers to an ’18k’ watch on his wrist and recalls his time in court with his ‘bottoms sagging’ with everyone ‘wigs on ‘eads’.

He raps: ’Rico Racks, Rico Racks, door to door with the black and white cats, door to door like Postman Pat, it’s first class service without a stamp.

‘Watch it drown, bring it back, chop the c****, hit the flats, chocolate chip that’s Maryland.’

Nathaniel Wade, defending the musician in 2019, had told his sentencing hearing at Blackfriars Crown Court: ‘It couldn’t be right that those who produce rap music with this subject matter would be committing a public order offence, it might be offensive, but not causing harassment, alarm or distress.

‘As it happens I have a collection of music with offensive lyrics, with parental advisory labels, some of it is highly prized and sought after in public.

‘I think it is not the right path to take a embrace self-expression through music in a community behaviour order.’

In his video pretends to cook crack on a kitchen stove with the help of a scantily-clad woman.

He posed with large wads of cash as he raps about the progress he has made selling class A drugs and the risks he faces if caught.

Kimpalu predicted his fate when he rapped in Sinning and Winning: ‘If I bagged with this packet I’m straight getting charged for intent to supply, couple years back I was out here just shotting cro’, so I had to switch it up so when I reload I get some goods that snow’.

He also described ‘whipping’ cocaine into crack cocaine after buying in bulk from his ‘connect’.

‘I just linked my connect and they dropped me a bulk of yola, now I’m heading straight to the bando where I whip this work with straight composure.’

In other scenes he poses with a girl in lingerie and dances around a £90,000 Range Rover wearing a balaclava.

Police had seized drugs and cash linked to the rapper from an apartment in central London on June 7, 2018, but he was not arrested until May 2019.

Kimpalu, of Cromer Street, Camden, had admitted supplying cocaine and heroin and two counts of possession of criminal property (cash).

He was jailed for three years in October 2019 and the cash proceeds were seized by the Crown.

The rapper was also issued with a five year Criminal Behaviour Order, with the following conditions: Not to possess articles linked to drug dealing; Not to possess more than one mobile phone and which needs to be registered with Immobilise.com; Not to refer to a number of words when rapping and posting videos online including: bandoe, trapping, Booj, connect, shotting, whipping, and Kitty – all drug-related references).

The community behaviour order also forbid Kimpalu from contacting the vulnerable person whose address he was arrested at or from having more than one phone.